knightfly
GrouchyOldFartOnBatteries
Hi Patricia - I got a few minutes between shifts, thought I'd check the progress so far - Littledog and Seanmorse are indeed accurate in their assessments, unfortunately. The only thing I might add is re: Littledog's comment about the mechanical feel of scanned in sheet music, due to the quantization (timing correction) that is necessary in order for notation to be printed out correctly. Here is my take on that. Bear in mind each and every one of the following "ifs" - IF your audio tapes have percussion tracks that exhibit a steady beat, and IF your scores are scannable, and IF you can find someone with the expertise and time, then MAYBE, the original timing (feel) of the cassettes can be super-imposed on the MIDI tracks generated by scanning the score. This would require
a scanner (seanmorse's comments seconded here, I have a Canon slimline USB model that was $99, works great and about 3-4 times as fast as my older SCSI model)
Software - Cakewalk Pro Audio/Sonar have a function called "extract audio timing" that can, with practice, re-map a MIDI sequence with a new "tempo track" based on audio events, such as kick and snare drum. This is not an easy thing to do, requires several tries usually, and doesn't always work even then. The XL version of Sonar has several soft-synths and sampler type applications that might be useful, if not for this project then at least for future endeavors.
Software - Finale, depending on the version, may be all that's necessary to convert your scores to MIDI files, which could then be imported into Cake/Sonar. If not, then Musitek's SmartScore series of programs should do it. They are available as demo's for free, so once you had a scanner it wouldn't cost anything to see if the scanning will work.
For cleanup and conversion to MP3, either Sound Forge with the Noise Reduction module, or Samplitude Studio, would do all you need to do. Samplitude does unlimited tracks, so would be better for multitrack projects in addition to cleanup.
The more I chew on this, the more I think starting over may be your best bet. I would check the local musician's union for possible help with re-playing parts, if you're not going to do it yourself. Having both the cassettes and the sheet music will help anyone doing this to get the same "feel".
I don't like to ever sound like "Eeyore the donkey" , but considering the complexity of doing what you want to do AND the continued fickleness of the web for actually profitable schemes, if you're doing this to actually make a living I would have to recommend getting a job a McDonald's or something. If you're as prolific a composer as it sounds, you might be better off setting up a more professional system, joining TAXI and writing spec pieces on demand. This is one of my next projects, once I get caught up on the 2,435,697 current ones.
I didn't ever intend to give you false hope - your project is doable, one way or another. It's just not going to be easy or quick. There is a fact of life that is referred to in several different circles, known as the "good/fast/cheap" triangle. You can have any two of the three. Period. This seems to hold true for anything you consider.
If you decide after all this that you still want to pursue the project, please feel free to ask for more help either here or privately. You've already found out there are several people here with good advice (some not so good, I won't mention any names for fear of waking them up) so remember we wouldn't be here if we didn't want to help. Also, posting back regarding any progress you make would not be unwelcome and might spark more suggestions as well. Gotta go for now, let us know what you decide... Steve
a scanner (seanmorse's comments seconded here, I have a Canon slimline USB model that was $99, works great and about 3-4 times as fast as my older SCSI model)
Software - Cakewalk Pro Audio/Sonar have a function called "extract audio timing" that can, with practice, re-map a MIDI sequence with a new "tempo track" based on audio events, such as kick and snare drum. This is not an easy thing to do, requires several tries usually, and doesn't always work even then. The XL version of Sonar has several soft-synths and sampler type applications that might be useful, if not for this project then at least for future endeavors.
Software - Finale, depending on the version, may be all that's necessary to convert your scores to MIDI files, which could then be imported into Cake/Sonar. If not, then Musitek's SmartScore series of programs should do it. They are available as demo's for free, so once you had a scanner it wouldn't cost anything to see if the scanning will work.
For cleanup and conversion to MP3, either Sound Forge with the Noise Reduction module, or Samplitude Studio, would do all you need to do. Samplitude does unlimited tracks, so would be better for multitrack projects in addition to cleanup.
The more I chew on this, the more I think starting over may be your best bet. I would check the local musician's union for possible help with re-playing parts, if you're not going to do it yourself. Having both the cassettes and the sheet music will help anyone doing this to get the same "feel".
I don't like to ever sound like "Eeyore the donkey" , but considering the complexity of doing what you want to do AND the continued fickleness of the web for actually profitable schemes, if you're doing this to actually make a living I would have to recommend getting a job a McDonald's or something. If you're as prolific a composer as it sounds, you might be better off setting up a more professional system, joining TAXI and writing spec pieces on demand. This is one of my next projects, once I get caught up on the 2,435,697 current ones.
I didn't ever intend to give you false hope - your project is doable, one way or another. It's just not going to be easy or quick. There is a fact of life that is referred to in several different circles, known as the "good/fast/cheap" triangle. You can have any two of the three. Period. This seems to hold true for anything you consider.
If you decide after all this that you still want to pursue the project, please feel free to ask for more help either here or privately. You've already found out there are several people here with good advice (some not so good, I won't mention any names for fear of waking them up) so remember we wouldn't be here if we didn't want to help. Also, posting back regarding any progress you make would not be unwelcome and might spark more suggestions as well. Gotta go for now, let us know what you decide... Steve
Compare the DPI resolution, higher is better, for an idea of the quality. I believe 600x1200 is pretty standard.